Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. His recent book is Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya. He is author of: Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney; Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation; Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists and African Liberation in the 21st Century; and Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics. Follow on Twitter @Horace_Campbell.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The execution of Gaddafi and the attempted humiliation of Africa

The inability of the Western media and other “information” sources to manage the news of the execution of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was compounded by the news, according to the New York based Human Rights Watch, that 53 supporters of the ousted regime were executed at a hotel in Sirte with their hands tied behind their backs (Huffington Post October 26, 2011). Wall-to-wall news bulletins of the demise of Colonel Gaddafi, which should have been a moment of victory for the imperial forces, has now turned into a public relations disaster and nightmare for those military planners who want to distance themselves from the gruesome details of the execution.

Gaddafi had vowed to fight to the end. Thus, the outcome of his death was not surprising. But the NATO forces tried to capitalize on Gaddafi’s cockiness and delusions by trying to re-package his death as a result of a firefight. But they could not cover up the truth. Video footage taken on camera phones show a wounded Colonel Gaddafi being dragged, beaten and tortured but very much alive. In the next set of footages he is dead. The videos are strong evidence that the Geneva Convention was violated.

The immoral and illegal actions by the NATO-backed military forces and private contractors in Libya were further exacerbated by the lack of respect shown towards the religious and cultural traditions of the Libyan people when the mortal remains of Colonel Gaddafi and his son, Muatassim, were kept in a meat locker until the bodies started to decompose. Read more